When Holly Lam (Cecilia Cheung) loses her minibus driver fiancé Man Liang (Louis Koo) in a crash on the job, she decides to support Man’s orphaned son Laurie (Harashima Daichi) and carry on the trade her man had invested so much in. Soon she repairs the crashed bus and starts working the Hong Kong Island east-west route, much to the disapproval of her family. Breaking into the minibus driver routine is not without other hardship, and it takes the support of good Samaritan colleague Hale (Lau Ching-wan) for Holly to learn the ropes, to deal with triad interference and, eventually, to pay the bills at home. As Hale becomes a guardian angel figure, and like a father to the boy, Holly must face letting go of the past before she can reach a new beginning.
With a plot focused on a young woman coping with a death, getting stuck in the past and finding companionship in a helpful stranger, Lost in Time offers an unhurried story set among hard-working characters. Drama gets too heavy-handed at times but James Yuen and Jessica Fong’s script still reserves adequate space to calmly cover protagonist Holly’s personal difficulties, a one-way dialogue she develops through Man’s answering service and the time spent with the boy and her newfound partner.
Cecilia Cheung handles a diverse role well to deliver much of the movie’s dramatic moments, for which the script affords maximum tears. The Hale character is more carefully fleshed out beyond being just a support figure, and Lau Ching-wan gives a natural performance as the character blends into Holly’s life with minimal theatrics. Louis Koo is billed as a special guest but offers a good presence in flashbacks and child actor Harashima Daichi meanwhile scores full marks for cuteness as Laurie.
Tim Youngs